Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Blizzard Finishes

The aforementioned blizzard dropped about two feet of snow, necessitating a driving ban for nearly two days. Then our snowblower broker, so my weekend was spent indoors, and I had no excuse not to finish a few things. Here are the results of my enforced vacation:

I should have cut the linen for the cat a bit smaller and had the right side of the pillow be visually shorter than the left, but by the time I realized this I had already sewn the two sides together. Thanks to Carol for telling me how to attach the trim (use glue and a toothpick!)

I took these pictures horizontally, but you know Blogger and its mind of its own! I started to rusch the ribbon below for it using Vonna's tutorial (it's metallic and lacy and I love its look), but holding it up to the pillow it just didn't look good. Now if I could have done a ribbon like this lovely one of Vonna's, that would have been a different story. But rusty orange ribbon is awfully hard to come by.

I also followed Vonna's advice (thank you Vonna!) to iron interfacing to the back of my linen, and the pillows are definitely less lumpy than they would have been if I'd done them without it. So all in all I am a happy camper. Now all I need is another blizzard to get the rest of the finishing done!

I was reading some messages from a cross stitch list I am subscribed to, and there were several reports of craft stores no longer carrying DMC and using Sullivan's instead. There was even a mention of Michael's stocking another type of floss instead of DMC. Has anyone been finding this? While I prefer to stitch with overdyes when I can, I can't imagine having to order DMC floss online instead of running out to Michael's or A.C. Moore to pick up what I need!

My Just CrossStitch magazine came in the mail the other day. They have a new editor and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were a number of designs I actually wanted to stitch! Usually I am lucky to find just one (not that I've done many of them other than ornaments - Summer Song was my first major piece) but maybe I'll find more that I like in JCS now. For anyone interested they had profiles of and charts from the designers of both Prairier Schooler and By the Bay Needleart.

It's school vacation week so my son is still sleeping - it's so nice not to have to rush around and get ready for school. I think I'll use the quiet time to get a little more stitching done...

Oy - I just looked at this in draft and accidentally closed the editor rather than the preview tab. Thank goodness for autosave!

3 comments:

Nice to have some extra time for finishing, Michele! And both of them turned out so cute... It is often hard to find the perfect color of ribbon to accent a finish; I think that's why I've begun using self-made cording so much. You know it will be a perfect match :)

I sure hope JoAnn's keeps stocking DMC--I agree, I can't imagine having to order it online!!